LAPD, FBI still looking for abductors of 10-year-old Northridge girl

Two kidnappers remained at large Thursday as Los Angeles police and the FBI tried to find out what prompted the abduction of a 10-year-old Northridge girl.

Nicole Ryan, who was discovered missing early Wednesday, was found 11 hours later wandering shoeless in a Woodland Hills strip mall.

She was back home Thursday after being evaluated at a hospital.

The LAPD was looking for two men the girl said abducted her. Nicole described one only as a white man about 18 years old and did not have a description of the other, Cmdr. Andrew Smith said.

Nicole told police she did not know the men, who she said took her from her house to an abandoned home nearby and then to a storage facility before dropping her off at Kaiser Permanente's Woodland Hills Medical Center. Nicole said she was put in several vehicles during the ordeal.

Such stranger abductions are highly unusual in the United States and in Los Angeles, Smith said. He said detectives would "leave no stone unturned" and were investigating Nicole's family, registered sex offenders in the area and whether something that happened online led to the crime.

The LAPD's elite Robbery Homicide Division, whose Special Assault Section investigates kidnappings, was leading the investigation.

The Los Angeles Times reported police were investigating whether there is a link to a 2008 kidnapping case that involved a child related to the Ryan family.

Police already had one vehicle in custody Wednesday night and were looking for others. They also found a storage facility at Mason Avenue and Nordhoff Street and were treating it as a crime scene.

Police said relatives told them Nicole did not have a history of running away and there was no apparent incident that would have led her to leave.

On Thursday, Nicole's relatives did not speak to media camped outside the family house, which was still surrounded with yellow police tape. But late in the morning, a blonde woman, believed to be Nicole's aunt, ducked under yellow crime tape and briskly walked to her car parked off Oakdale Avenue as news cameras swarmed her. The woman, who did not give her name, was faintly heard saying Nicole was home and doing fine.

Stanely Zeitlin, who has a garage abutting the Ryan house, said he didn't know about the reported kidnapping until Wednesday around 6 a.m. when helicopters began hovering overhead.

Otherwise, Zeitlin he rarely heard any noise come from the house other than kids occasionally playing in the neighborhood on the weekends.

But other neighbors said they were shocked to know a child lived at the house, which is on a quiet block of Oakdale Avenue.

"We're very familiar with the neighborhood, but we didn't even know there were kids there," said Stephanie Dolatre, who lives off Gresham Street just two houses from the intersection of Oakdale. "I've certainly never seen the girl."

Dolarte said her son told her he'd occasionally seen the redheaded girl riding her bicycle around the block, although the two children didn't know each other.

Dolarte's 2-year-old son goes to Primrose Child Care at the corner of Oakdale and Gresham, and she never worried for his safety until Wednesday. With her neighborhood turned into a crime scene, she was suddenly cautious.

"My husband left for work last night, and I was scared," Dolarte said. "It makes you worry when you don't know what's going on."

A day earlier, Ashley Mansour and her boyfriend, Jamal Sayed, stood at another scene surrounded by police tape: the strip mall in Woodland Hills where Nicole was found. They were surprised to hear about the attempted abduction.

"I was born and raised in Northridge, so for it to happen in my neighborhood was scary to hear about it," Mansour said.

Nicole's mother last saw her in bed about 1 a.m. Police said she woke to a noise about 3:30 a.m., checked on Nicole and discovered her missing.

A neighbor, Amanda Velasquez, said in an interview that her son came in her room about the same time, 3:30 or 4 a.m., but didn't mention anything being wrong. Later in the day, he told his mother he'd heard a door slam in the middle of the night.

There was no sign of forced entry to the Ryan home, but a missing persons flyer said the back door was unlocked and the side gate was open - a gate whose lock Nicole could not reach without help.

The disappearance triggered a massive police response. Capt. Kris Pitcher of the LAPD's Devonshire Division said police did a door-to-door search in a two-square-mile radius around Nicole's house.

Officers and detectives from all seven LAPD stations in the San Fernando Valley joined in the search, along with other LAPD officers and FBI agents with the juvenile abduction unit.

Just before 3 p.m. Wednesday, someone spotted Nicole at a shopping center at Canoga Avenue and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills, about six miles away from her house. The person recognized her from media reports and notified nearby police officers.

Police said Nicole had "facial bruising and lacerations," but was walking and talking. She was last seen at home wearing a black T-shirt, but had on a white T-shirt when she was found.

"She basically is in shock right now," Pitcher said Wednesday afternoon.

Velasquez, who has lived behind the Ryan family for two years, described Nicole as reserved.

"She is very withdrawn and very quiet. She doesn't say much," Velasquez said.

She said the Ryans seemed to be up late a lot.

"They are up at all hours of the night sometimes," she said. "I know because their lights shine right on my French doors."

At a news conference Wednesday night, LAPD Capt. William Hayes, commander of the Robbery Homicide Division, told reporters, "you have a 10-year-old girl ... who was taken from her home and held by individuals for several hours. If these individuals are brazen enough to do that, I'm putting all the resources I have to make sure they don't do it again."

Police officers said they were not sure when they would open up portion of Oakdale Avenue near the girl's house, as they were protecting neighbors from media and curious bystanders.

Staff writer Gregory J. Wilcox and City News Service contributed to this report.